


Day 3: Delirium

by Aelaer



Series: Whumptober 2019 [3]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Corpses, Creepy Alien Bugs, Dead People, Delirium, Dimension Travel, Gen, Hallucinations, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 10:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelaer/pseuds/Aelaer
Summary: Stephen was warned about Roseamundi early on, not too long after Dormammu."Doesn't that translate to 'Pink World' from Latin?" he asked Wong."It's very pink," Wong said with a shrug. "Don't want to spend more than an hour there, though.""Why?""Eventually something within the atmosphere causes a person to start going delirious.""Not in a good way, I take it.""Records suggest that one will likely end up dead within a twelve-hour period."Definitely not a good way.





	Day 3: Delirium

**Author's Note:**

> I always have an A/N and it felt weird not having one. Hello! Thanks for clicking! Enjoy!

Stephen was warned about Roseamundi early on, not too long after Dormammu.

"Doesn't that translate to 'Pink World' from Latin?" he asked Wong.

"It's very pink," Wong said with a shrug. "Don't want to spend more than an hour there, though."

"Why?"

"Eventually something within the atmosphere causes a person to start going delirious."

"Not in a good way, I take it."

"Records suggest that one will likely end up dead within a twelve-hour period."

Definitely not a good way.

So that dimension-hopping imp that came out from the relic they just got off Ebay and had trapped him in said Pink World was a bonafide asshole. Stephen was pretty sure it knew exactly what it was doing.

Wong hadn't described how this dimension's victims were likely to die, but Stephen had a vivid imagination and entirely too much experience. So while he was still coherent, he found a clear spot in the lily pink field of something spongy, well away from anything sharp, and sat down. He took a deep breath to clear his mind and to sink into meditation. Not even the Cloak was with him; he could only rely upon himself.

As such, he didn't know how much time had passed when he started to feel a twitchy restlessness that eventually stirred him from his meditation. His fingers clenched and relaxed at his sides in involuntary intervals. Stephen's attempt to dive deep again into stillness, despite his practice, proved futile. His restlessness grew greater, running from his fingers into his arms and down the length of his body all the way to his toes. He wanted to get up. He wanted to pace. He forced himself to keep sitting. _Discipline_.

His fingers twitched. He worked his jaw. He curled his toes. His muscles jumped underneath his skin, needing so very badly to move that it stung and burned.

Wait.

Stephen opened his eyes. Hot pink ants a centimeter long, their mandibles half of their size, had chewed through almost all the material of his shirt sleeves and made several holes in his pants. The ones not still working on cloth were biting into his flesh, scraping through his skin to get deeper and deeper.

He cried out in alarm and sprung up, smacking and scrubbing the nasty alien insects off himself. If he had more strength in his hands Stephen may have scratched more holes into himself with his ferocity, but for now what damage there was mostly came from the ants.

After hopping away from the bugs, he set that part of the field on fire because his oath only covered sentient, reasoning beings and he's hated ants ever since he was a boy because they attacked his house every damn summer, without fail.

The fire extinguished itself and the ground was now a sooty pink and he was still restless and there were possibly more of those ants around, so he started to walk. Walking was good.

Maybe one minute, or ten minutes, or sixty minutes passed. It was a bit hard to tell. But he walked and it definitely did pass in some manner, and then he came across a hanging tree. It was a proper oak tree (though a bit pinkish) with strong, near horizontal branches curving more to his left than his right from his current point.

Also, there were bodies hanging on it, rope nooses and all. They seemed familiar in some weird way, though they were all far beyond the point of recognition. Decomposition was so advanced that he didn't smell anything beyond a strange crispness in the air that reminded him of childhood autumns. One of the corpses, oddly enough, looked a bit damp.

Then one of the bodies turned its head towards him and said, "Stevie," in his mother's voice.

Stephen felt his voice leave him. He took a step back.

"Leaving us again, Stephen?" asked another corpse with his father's voice.

"Please don't leave," said the damp corpse in his sister's voice, Donna's voice, drowned Donna.

He left. He fled away from the tree as fast as he was capable, scrambling from the field and to the rocky magenta mounds, cutting his palms and fingers upon sharp stone as he tripped and stumbled but it did not matter as he just had to get away, far away, as far as possible—

Something wrapped around his torso to bring him to an abrupt halt. He looked down and saw a wide, pinkish-red vine wrapped around him, trying to restrain him, drag him, kill him like he had been killed so many times before and not again, _not again!_

Stephen conjured the Sword of the Vishanti to cut the vine about him in half. The attack did nothing, and the vine wrapped itself about him again to restrain both arms. He yelled in anger and fear, but he was not to be so easily bested by a plant, of all things. He began to draw in more power to try something he had yet to do without his hands, but what choice did he have? Besides, the Bolts of Balthakk would surely force it to release him.

"No!" he suddenly heard, and his surprise caused him to pause. About twenty feet away was Kaecilius, only he was a half-rotted corpse, and already he was creating a portal that led to the Dark Dimension and no, he would never go back—

The vine shot him through the portal just as he built enough electricity in hands—

—and it dropped him just as he released a bolt through his body to cover his immediate area, which was the sickly neon surrounded by blackness—

… only no. No, it…

… the floor was… wood. Cool wood. Indoors.

He blinked the dark haze out of his eyes and the ringing in his ears subsided until he heard, "... hear me? Are you lucid?"

Stephen knew that voice. "Wong?" he croaked.

"Thank the Vishanti," his friend muttered. "Can you stand?"

He blinked as his eyesight came back fully. He was lying on his side in the foyer of the Sanctum. For some reason, the floor around him appeared splintered and burnt. His clothes were torn and his hands bloody, and in his peripheral vision he caught the Cloak hovering with nervous energy.

"What… what happened?" he muttered.

"What happened is that you ignored Master Hamir's explicit instruction to wait for another master before examining the relic and nearly got yourself killed," Wong said, tone indicating he was clearly not impressed. "You are very fortunate that the Cloak is as intelligent and loyal as it is. Now, can you stand?"

"I— I think so," he said, slowly getting to one knee. The Cloak attached himself to his shoulders and helped him up the rest of the way. At its touch, he remembered the pinkish-red vine. "Was that— were you with the Cloak in… where I was."

"Yes, and you can again thank the relic for saving your idiotic ass," Wong said irritably. "And for its efforts you nearly fried it. We're going to the healing wing now."

Was it really that bad? No, wait, did Wong say he nearly hit the Cloak with a spell? Well, the floor looked rather raw… healing wing, though? "I just… need sleep," he said.

His thoughts were trailing this way and that as Wong opened a portal directly to the entrance of the wing. "Then sleep in here," was Wong's answer, and the Cloak carried him over the golden threshold.

Stephen was pretty sure he owed them both an apology, but why he did was hard to remember. He'd figure it out after he got some sleep.

And indeed, the moment his body hit a bed, before even a medic had come to look him over, Stephen was already asleep, a loyal cloak over his form and a stoic, protective librarian standing nearby.


End file.
